A Dark Night and a Light Sleeper
by Fennelseed
Summary: Frodo awakens in Mordor to find Sam touching him, and pretends to be asleep to see what transpires. (SLASH)


Disclaimer: Hobbits and place-names and so forth do not belong to me, and I am not paid for such writings.   
  
The touch awakens me. It was kind of you, Sam, to let me fall asleep with your legs as my pillow, and I must have slept fairly deeply, because I had been dreaming - a strange dream combining childhood memories and recent acquaintances like Galadriel and Faramir. But it was not a nightmare. I feel strangely good for a change, and as I slowly emerge from the dream I find that somehow we have shifted so that my head is on a bundle of cloth on the stone ground, and my legs are across your lap. I let my eyes flicker open just a bit, just enough to see that it is still the middle of the night (or what passes for it in the realm of Mordor), and so I close them again. I would rather sleep longer.  
  
But then I am also curious about that touch.  
  
Your hand is lying upon me, heavy but not uncomfortable, between my legs. Is this accidental? Are you asleep as well? I could turn over, or nudge your hand away with my knee, but in honesty I'm curious. If I stay still, what will happen? For I am sure you gave me a caress; I am sure it wasn't just the weight of your hand that awakened me.  
  
Ah - yes. In another moment, after I have lain quiet for a spell, and kept my breathing deep and regular, your hand moves again. It twitches like a stealthy mouse, and touches a searching pattern around the front of my trousers, finding out the shape and size of me. I do my best to seem asleep, and I listen. I must know if you are merely sleepwalking, as it were, before I can form an opinion on this.   
  
After half a minute more, I decide your breathing is too shallow, too unsteady, to be that of a sleeping hobbit's. For that matter, your touch is too deliberate, not dreamlike enough. Ah, Sam, Sam. I see I am not the only one who is curious tonight. I never would have expected this of you. Should I be shocked? I suppose I am, to some degree. But after everything we have seen and everything we have been through, after yesterday's horrible climb up those dark stairs, and the hellish vision of the Morgul Vale (made fuzzy in my memory by what the Ring has been doing to my mind lately), this isn't really shocking. In fact, it is almost amusing.  
  
"Asleep?" you whisper. Your hand hovers above me. I decide not to answer. What will you do if you think I am?  
  
I find out a few moments later. You resume feeling me, lightly, with shy fingers and shaky breath. You wouldn't dare do this if I were awake. You would sooner seize the Lady Galadriel to your chest and force a kiss upon her than do anything that might offend me. I know how you care for me. I know you love me in some fashion - without that knowledge I could never have got this far - but I didn't know you loved me in *this* fashion. Should I feel violated, betrayed? I don't. You are excited, that I can tell, but you are not rough or arrogant or sly. You seem to think you are risking blasphemy, heresy, by your act. That is how highly you esteem me; that is why you are so nervous. And yet you aren't stopping, as if you can't help yourself.  
  
Should I be repelled? My male gardener, my best friend, my guardian, taking such liberties? I am not repelled. In fact, your touch, dear Sam, is doing things to me, as surely you are noticing. I feel myself stirring; I feel tighter and fuller there, and to your fingers I must feel harder by now. The worn velvet of these trousers, and the thin linen beneath, will not do much to hide this fact from questing hands. Is this how I, as your master, should be reacting? I know some masters are used to this from their hired help. They would unbutton their trousers right now and start muttering erotic directives to their young friend, who would blithely obey. Other masters, such as Bilbo perhaps, would be scandalized. They might sit up and strike their lad across the face for such behavior, then send him packing.  
  
I could never strike you, Sam, and could certainly not send you away, especially not now. Our master-valet relationship is not like either of those two types, bedfellows or distant companions, but I suppose it is closer to the former.   
  
Apparently it is closer than I realized, because, ah, I do not mind what you are doing. I learned to feign sleep like every other child did, long ago, and this skill is serving me well now, but it is difficult not to murmur appreciation, not to tell you "A little higher, please," or "A little harder, please." I can't speak; you would stop instantly in utter shame and panic if I did. Wouldn't you? And I don't want you to stop.  
  
Now you are rubbing me slowly with your whole hand, not just your fingertips. I hear you swallow, every few minutes, in what must be an agony, for you, of suspense and arousal. Your breathing is even less steady than before. I decide that in my "sleep" I would be allowed to shift around a bit and sigh in pleasure, so I do: I lift my hips, twice, slowly, into your hand, and let my head fall aside with a soft hum, to encourage you. You take in your breath in what sounds like a stab of desire, and give me a slightly harder squeeze. Oh...*yes*, *like that*. I wish I could say it aloud.  
  
You needn't be ashamed, Sam. This was a good idea, a wonderful idea. Your body must have known that I needed this - that we both needed this - a reminder of the delicious things to be had in the world. It has been far too long since I took this kind of pleasure of myself; I can't even remember the last time; and now you've awakened a ravenous creature in me. I've even thought of you, a few times, ages ago now it seems - oh, yes, dip down lower between my legs like that; I'll open my thighs to make it easier for you - and so this doesn't seem as wrong as you'd think I would find it. If it is wrong, I do not care; tomorrow we follow Gollum into a tunnel from which we may never emerge, so who will judge us for this moment, here and now? Don't feel agonized, Sam, don't feel sorry; just keep doing what you are doing, and I'll not shame you by speaking or opening my eyes.  
  
We are both breathing fast now. I am not hesitating to rock my hips against your hand when the urge takes me. I am only careful to keep my movements drowsy in appearance, the twisting of an adolescent in an erotic dream. You've taken me far enough that if you stop I will scream, I swear it - but will you actually see this through to the end? Would you do that to me? Pull me across that ecstatic line and then leave me wet and stained and still buttoned-up? Not that the stains would show, our clothes being in such a state by now, but it wouldn't be comfortable and I wish, oh, how I wish, that you would just have the nerve to unfasten me and drape a handkerchief there and finish it that way. It would be a touch of civilization on this cold, hard surface, far away from baths and feather-beds, and it would feel so good, your hand touching me directly, no velvet between us...  
  
From the rustling, the occasional movement against my leg, and your breathing, I realize that you are stroking me with one hand and yourself with the other. How coordinated you are, dear. Through your clothes? Inside your clothes? *Outside* your clothes? Oh how I want to see...how I want to touch...  
  
A deft flick at my navel, and suddenly your hand is closer, more real - I arch my back a bit, and almost moan out loud. You have somehow undone enough buttons to reach in and stroke me, under the velvet, on top of the linen. Oh, don't stop there, Sam, just move those folds aside, find the flap, free me, stroke me outside.   
  
I am squirming and sighing enough that you seem to understand the urgency, and, miraculously, driven by your own desire, or by the wish to help keep me clean and dry, you take the plunge: you nudge open my linens, slip me out (how very skilful your hands are!), and then - ah, now I do moan aloud, softly, softly - it is your palm on my skin, and you squeeze and caress - but you do it too lightly; it's torture. After all, you do not want to wake me up, but, oh, oh, please, you must be firmer now; you must realize that no one could sleep through this; just throw aside such caution and *do it harder*, Sam.  
  
You answer my silent plea. Your hand grips me and moves on an increasingly fast course towards the now-inevitable end. Shifting my head deliriously from one side to the other, I let my eyelashes flutter open just enough to see through them, and in the faint moonlight, I catch a quick glimpse of your head bowed and gazing at the parts of me you have exposed, your lips apart in rapid breathing, your hands at work on me and on yourself - and you must have unfastened your own trousers as well, I can tell by the angle of your wrist. Ah, the idea of that...do you know how much I would like to do that to you? Have you dared to hope that it might cross my mind? You have me so excited, I would do anything for your pleasure, anything...  
  
I cannot hold back. I spiral up into your touch and break into a thousand tantalized pieces. A stream of stars seems to surge through my blood and out between my legs. Your grip on me becomes slick and hot; fluid drips onto my navel. I hear you gasp, and then from the jolt under my legs and the inadvertent squeeze and then slackening of your hand on me, I know you have reached a climax as well.  
  
Quietly you let go. You carefully, so carefully, touch me up with the handkerchief I had envisioned, and somehow refasten my clothes so gently that I might actually have been able to sleep through it. There is a quiet spell and some soft movement while you presumably do the same for yourself. Then you slump back against the cave wall and rest a hand on my leg, and we are still.  
  
I am drifting into drowsiness, wondering if I should say something to you tomorrow - but what? "By the way, thank you for last night"? - when you tremble a little, and I hear a wet, sharp inhalation. I wait, and soon I hear another, followed by a soft choke of misery.   
  
I can pretend to sleep through many things, Sam dearest, but I will not pretend to sleep while you are crying. Perhaps you are consumed with shame at what you just did. Perhaps you are homesick and frightened. Perhaps you hate what your life has become, and where I have led you. Perhaps it is all of these things together, or something else I haven't guessed at. Whatever it is, I will not, I cannot, lie here and ignore you. I say aloud, in a voice intended to sound sleepy and just-awoken, "Sam? What's the matter?"  
  
Silence. Then you whisper, "Nothing. Everything's all right. You go back to sleep."  
  
I sit up carefully - the moon has gone behind clouds, and our cave is now nearly pitch black. I find your face with one hand, and feel tears. Sitting across your lap, I hug you. "Don't cry," I beg.  
  
You hold me, and let your face fall to my shoulder. From your torn breathing I can tell you are still weeping. "This is all so horrible," you mumble. "You deserve better than all this. You shouldn't've had to be here."  
  
"At least you're with me," I say, and somehow I keep my voice smooth even though you've nearly pierced my heart with pity and sweetness.   
  
"You deserve better than *me* here," you say.  
  
"I don't want anyone here but you," I answer. And at the moment, this is absolutely true. When fighting enemies or facing the treacherous passages of Mordor, yes, sometimes I have thought it would be very useful to have Aragorn or Gandalf or someone else with us. But always you as well. Never do I picture life without you. I would tell you this, but I don't want you to guess that I've been awake all this time. I have the feeling it would only make you feel more wretched right now. I hope this is the right decision. "Come on," I say. "Lie down; you need to sleep."  
  
You are, naturally, tired, so you allow me to pull you down to the cave floor and arrange you where I was lying earlier. I sit up and keep your legs in my lap, and stroke your knee softly until your breathing is calm and slow.  
  
I watch the few stars that are visible through the opening of the rocks. A while later, when I am almost sure you are asleep, I whisper, "I was awake. I liked it. Please don't worry."  
  
You don't answer or move. But perhaps you heard me, and are only pretending to sleep. 


End file.
